Pitchfork

Baltimore's Dan Deacon, the MacGyver of electronic blips and beeps, recently gathered members of Ponytail, So Percussion, and other local noisemakers to assist him in debuting new material from the Spiderman of the Rings follow-up Bromst. From a stage drenched in darkness, Deacon and his band of various percussionists take their time bringing the first track, "Snookered", to life. Emerging from a swirl of drums, glockenspiels, and Deacon's trademark 8-bit synths, the rhythms finally coalesce as Deacon takes his place downstage among his fans-- who by now are ready to dance. In fact they hardly allow Deacon space to develop the next track, "Surprise Stefani", goading him on with their own beats of handclaps, stomps, and shouts.

"Snookered"


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"Surprise Stefani"

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[Bromst is due 03/24/09 on Carpark]

Writing about their 2006 album Citrus, Pitchfork's Joe Tangari took pains to point out that Asobi Seksu didn't quite fit the nu-gaze template, despite the presence of sweet pop melodies buried under overdriven guitars. "Familiar Light", from their forthcoming third album Hush, finds them toning things down slightly from the likes of "New Years" or "Goodbye". Now a duo of James Hanna and singer Yuki Chikudate, Asobi Seksu seem to be working in more of a jangly indie-pop vein, though still with a wispy and ethereal cast.

MP3:> Asobi Seksu: "Familiar Light"
[from Hush; due 02/17/09 on Polyvinyl]

Handsome Furs' "I'm Confused", the first mp3 from the forthcoming Face Control, could be considered somewhat of a misnomer. Wolf Parade's Dan Boeckner, with the help of wife Alexei Perry, sounds to be much less confused than he did last year with his other fur-oriented "day job" band on At Mount Zoomer. In Wolf Parade, Boeckner can appear to be the pop foil to Spencer Krug, pushing for a tight hook instead of an extended accordion break. But with the darkly exuberant "I'm Confused", it's looking like an evening in with the wife will get you further than a night out with the boys. Perry's "Mixed Bizness"-indebted beats (cowbells, handclaps, and whatever else was lying around the house) contrast nicely with Boeckner's wiry guitar and paranoid coos, resulting in a creepy sock-hop jam that shivers as much as it shakes. As for the rest of the record, we'll have to wait and see see if the two could abstain from necking long enough to knock out a few more cuts as tight as "Confused". Face control, indeed.

MP3:> Handsome Furs: "I'm Confused"
[from Face Control; due 02/03/09 on Sub Pop]

Super fun video here from multi-monikered producer Jake Williams, aka Rex the Dog, for the forthcoming single "Bubblicious", which is also found on the The Rex the Dog Show comp. We see a pair of hands getting crafty building a little performers out of paper, including a keyboard-playing replica of the Rex mascot himself. Once animated, and with some pumping speakers and a colorful set behind them, they tear it up beneath a disco ball, partying 'til they puke.

[from The Rex the Dog Show; out now on Hundehaus]

In November we heard the scuff-grooved "Cable TV" from new Asthmatic Kitty-signee Fol Chen, which somewhere in there featured Angus Young from Liars. "No Wedding Cake", also taken from the forthcoming Part I: John Shade, Your Fortune's Made, here gets an animated video from director Nancy Jean Tucker, which features a fish with heavy lipstick, lions working as showgirls, an owl with a bleeding heart at the end of an arrow, and sundry other weirdness.

Pitchfork.tv page with embed code is here.

[from Part I: John Shade, Your Fortune's Made; due 02/03/09 on Asthmatic Kitty]

Here's a very low-key and mysterious video by director Dan Nixon for a remix of Telepathe's "Devil's Trident" by San Francisco trio Mi Ami (a track originally commissioned by the blog 20jazzfunkgreats). The more tightly wound and bulbous original is opened up completely, injected with air and sent to coast along close to the earth like a low-flying cloud. There's a bit of a KLF Chill Out feel to Mi Ami's treatment, as they remove vocals and turn the stuttering rhythm into a long glide into the horizon. Nixon's video, shot in the forest in East Sussex, pulses to the beat, sometimes existing on the threshold of visibility.

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[from the "Devil's Trident" 12"; out now on Merok]

Next month Zach Condon's Beirut has two EPs coming out. March of the Zapotec and Holland will be packaged together, but each draws on distinct musical influences. March of the Zapotec was recorded in Oaxaca, Mexico, and features contributions from the 19-piece Jimenez Band, while Holland has a synth-pop bent and appears under Condon's Realpeople alias. The video for "La Llorona" (the word always makes me think of this) by animator Owen Cook features a dog wondering through a pastel watercolor landscape that features a large band, a walled city, and a graveyard. (via Stereogum)

[from March of the Zapotec; due 02/17/09 on Pompeii/Ba Da Bing!]

Deastro is the one-man band of Detroit native Randolph Chabot, whose ambitious combination of anthemic indie rock and dreamy synth pop on 2007 song "The Shaded Forests" helped bring last year's Keepers compilation to the attention of bloggers. "Parallelogram", the lead single from Deastro's forthcoming Moondagger, takes another step in this direction. Though the whispery vocals are more muddled and the tunes a bit less memorable than the stuttering laptop-U2 of "The Shaded Forests", the song's twinkly instrumental hook should please fans of the Russian Futurists, M83, or the Mary Onettes. Chabot sings like Ben Gibbard if the Postal Service merged with Death Cab for Cutie and recorded a song for a John Hughes soundtrack with mostly indecipherable lyrics involving "Western philosophy". I've listened to "Parellelogram" dozens of times and I can't remember much more than that main instrumental hook; I can tell it will be ringing in your head, though, too-- naggingly reminding you to do your geometry homework.

MP3:> Deastro: "Parallelogram"
[from Moondagger; forthcoming on Ghostly International]

I am told that this is official, a slightly "remixed" alternate version of the iconic video for "Pork & Beans" that Weezer posted all sly-like under a different account (they also tweaked the title). It's a YouTube inside of a YouTube, which I guess doubles the meta factor right off the bat. Just watched it side-by-side with the original, and I see some new characters added, a couple of what might be bloopers, and some scenes that have new images layered on top of the old ones. Ronald Jenkees is jamming with the boys, and I think the YouTube blurb mentions the other new additions. ("I like Turtles" "Chad Vader", "Little Superstar" "Line Rider" "Ask a Ninja", a few more, most of which are new to me.) Still an amazing video in any form, and now, it's slightly different!  See what else you can pick out, and then stick around for the Rick Roll.

[from Weezer; out now on DGC Records]

Photo by Kathryn Yu

No idea how long it's going to last, but Franz Ferdinand is giving away an mp3 of "No You Girls Never Know", a track from the forthcoming Tonight: Franz Ferdinand via MySpace. It's on the MySpace Music page, just click the image on the right.

MP3:> Franz Ferdinand: "No You Girls Never Know"
[from Tonight: Franz Ferdinand; due 01/26/09 the UK on Domino and 01/27/09 in the U.S. on Domino/Epic]